Don't forget the cleaners they poured in the poor kid's eyes....
The death penalty does have one huge advantage: it would help deter crime like that by saying "hey, you do this kinda crap and you're gonna die."
Not to mention the whole justice system is messed up. People commit crimes and they get thrown in prison. Wow. That's such a punishment. So they may be forced to toss someone's salad, big deal. They get free food, free TV, and free health care. That's not much incentive to stay away from crime.
IMO, we should go back to things like public executions and dungeons. That may sound barbaric, but think about it for a sec. With public executions, both upstanding citizens and would-be criminals will get to see first hand what happens if you break the law, that would be a pretty big deterrent. With dungeons, the thought of hanging from a wall in shackles with rats gnawing at your emaciated body is much more unsettling than having a bed and TV and whatever medicine you need.
It might not be nice and sweet and humane, but these are criminals we're dealing with, and it would see a huge decrease in crime. And then our jails and prisons could just be used for lesser criminals, like ones who have stolen out of survival or did a bit of drunk driving.
I agree with you 100%...criminals go into jail where they get a lot of free services and it´s us who pay for their survival.
If there where indeed executions and solitary confinement for high crime penalties then the crime rate would decrease a lot.
In a case like these one for example those guys deserve no less than torture and death.